iePolitics.com

I thought I’d be a bit presumptuous and make a few predictions for the New Year. Hopefully, the blog will be around a year from now and we can all see how far off I am.

Board of Supervisors — I predict that at least one, and as many as three, members of the Board of Supervisors will be implicated in a scandal that makes all previous scandals pale in comparison. Other elected officials including Sheriff Penrod and DA Ramos may also be implicated.
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I came across this link over on the Daily Press blogs: Refreshing the Tree of Liberty

I’m taking the rest of the night off and probably most of tomorrow from the blog. I had to take some heavy duty pain meds last night and I can’t seem to shake the effects. I was pretty much a zombie at our Christmas celebration today. So I’m going home to sleep. If I happen to notice a comment, I will moderate it, but don’t expect anything new from me. Those of you vacationing in exotic places can go snorkeling with peace of mind that you aren’t missing anything. I promise there will be nothing new before noon tomorrow.

I sure hope all of you are enjoying this evening more than I am. I am three hours and fifteen minutes into my twelve-hour shift and wishing I could go home and go to bed! Y’all need to remind me not to do this again next year.

It is giving me plenty of time to blog and catch up on email. At this rate you may see lots of Naomi pics on the blog as well as Ernest Tubb and Porter Waggoner YouTube videos. Maybe I can find some Lawrence Welk accordian polkas while I’m at it.

I have the Jim Erwin post written but it’s far from final. Maybe it’ll get posted tonight; maybe not. I’m tired of working on it. It’s not coming out how I want it. I’m sure to tick off almost everyone with it.

I have an excuse for being on the blog, but those of you in Aruba should have more interesting things to do than read my blog! Last check there were 57 hits from Aruba. Can anyone say OCD? Someone tipped me off as to who you are. It’s Christmas. I promise no more negative pieces for a while. Relax. Go snorkeling or something. The blog will be here when you get back.

Since creating iePolitics I have been getting way more trackbacks and pingbacks. To be honest I’m not even sure what pingbacks are. Anyway, several national blogs have picked up my feed. I see very large numbers when I put up items from Barbara Boxer, Mary Bono Mack and Buck McKeon as well as anything to do with hospitals, such as the article yesterday on ARMC and the post a while back on Prem Reddy.

The pingbacks end up in either my regular comments or as spam. I delete them as they are not anything of value to my readers.

My question is this: By deleting the pingbacks that end up as comments, am I hurting anything such as discouraging others from linking to my blog or subscribing to my feed? I don’t want them on my blog as they make sense to no one but me but I don’t want to discourage hits or tick off other bloggers. Can someone clarify this for me?

Whoever you are, that was one of the funniest comments on this blog in a long time!

I’ve added two new links. The first is Five Before Midnight and the second is the Big Bear Observation Post. There is a third blog I’d like to add but I don’t know what it is called. I’ve stumbled across it a time or two and have never bookmarked it. It is owned by an African American female who is a student at Cal State. She may be a county employee too, but I’m not sure. What I’ve seen of it, she seems to write a lot about county corruption. Does this sound familiar to anyone? If so, send me the link.

I noticed a link to my blog from this blog. I had to laugh when I read the post because I think there is only one of those words I haven’t been called by public/union officials. You definitely have to develop a thick skin if you want to blog.

I did not take his link down because I knew he wouldn’t be able to stand it for very long. Did you last a whole week this time Gary? As of this moment, he has some incredible photos over there. Take a look: www.boogietwoshoes.com.

For those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about, be glad. For those of you computer savvy enough to get around it, also be glad. For the rest of you, I’m sorry, but it is my blog and I have to find ways to humor myself.
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When I was suspended for my blog, one of the entries HR cited was a joke I shared. You can find it here: Barbies. At the time (almost two years ago), the joke was circulating all over the internet, which is how I got it, and each region had its own set of Barbies, although the descriptions were the same. For example, the “Fontucky Barbie” might be called “Reno Barbie” or the “Bronx Barbie” or the “Ft. Lauderdale Barbie” for those circulating the joke in those parts of the country. Anyway, I was told it was an example of being disrespectful to the public.

What was interesting is that while discussing that particular blog entry, everyone in the room (the CAO, the assistant CAO, a COS, and a senior HRO) all admitted that they had read said email because it had been circulated on county computers on the Fifth Floor. So, in other words, it was okay for them to use county computers on county time to circulate this “disrespectful email about the public” but it was wrong for me to use my personal computer on my own time to do the same.
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I’ve updated the blogroll today. I’ve added sites so to be sure I tick off just about everyone! I feel like I have listed sites from both ends of the spectrum along with some in the middle. I’ve also added all SBCo. federal, state, and count elected officials except for those who have not taken office yet. They will be added as soon as they have sites up and running.

I’m still looking for sites of interest that fit in the blogroll and for some of you to join the blog pen. Email me if you’re interested at inlandempirepolitics@gmail.com.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us blog owners would love some help and some story contributions from others. I think we all believe in freedom of speech and the importance of discussion of issues in a safe forum. By all means, if you’d like to write for my blog, give me a shout.

Inland Utopia blog and other political voices
By Lauren McSherry on November 7, 2008 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aside from Sharon Gilbert’s new IE Politics blog, there aren’t that many political bogs tracking issues in San Bernardino County.

Of course, there’s the popular redcounty.com blog , which lately has been somewhat devoid of posts, and the Pave The Roads First blog, by Paul Bosacki, which tracks issues in the High Desert.

There’s also inlandutopia.com.

If you know of any others, give me a shout out either in the comments section of this blog or at lauren.mcsherry@inlandnewspapers.com

I haven’t had time to spend on the blog all week. Tonight I added a few more links. I hope to have the final version up tomorrow.

I have several articles I’m working on including one on the county dress code, one on elitism with the local Republicans, and one on the recent election. I’ve been too tired and too sick to write anything decent. Hopefully, I will catch up this weekend.

I put Ralph’s job search site up. If anyone else has some good job leads sites, will you email the links to me. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to need them.

That’s about it for tonight!

I lost many of my links from the old blog. I’d appreciate it if some of you would email me with your favorite poliical sites, news sites and animal sites. Ralph your ISP doesn’t like me and keeps returning my email. I need the link to your employment site

Someone asked me to increase the font size. Is this too big? I don’t like how it looks but if a majority of you find it easier to read, I’ll leave it.

I have no idea what is happening with this blog. It is supposed to be green and yellow with a tree in the middle. It keeps reverting back to the default theme. Could you guys do me a favor and let me know if you pull it up and it is blue instead of green and yellow? I’m not 100 percent sure if this a WordPress problem, an ISP problem, or a Mac problem. Most of the time I check the site from my Blackberry so no theme shows at all and therefore I don’t know there is a problem unless someone tells me.

Just a reminder that there are now two separate blogs: www.sharongilbert.com and www.iepolitics.com.

For those who wondered what happened, the blog was not down on purpose. I am not currently overjoyed with my host, Yahoo!, but we are at least back up and running.

I decided to go ahead and make the changes early. I really wanted a fresh start with the blog and was losing interest in the old blog quickly.

There will be a few changes with this blog. First, I am going to do my best to stay away from rumor and personal attacks. That means I would appreciate it if all of you would do the same.

I understand that this can present a challenge. For example, several of the entries already posted attack various politicians. Sometimes there is a very fine line between attacking someone personally and attacking someone for their actions. I believe in each of these posts, the public official is being attacked for their actions as a public official and I believe that those acts are worthy of discussion.

Second, I hope to keep this blog limited to issues concerning San Bernardino County with an emphasis on TAD, SBPEA, and politics in general. All those other items that you are used to seeing on my blog will be over at www.sharongilbert.com.

Third, you will be seeing a lot more from both sides of aisle. This is not a Republican blog or a Democratic blog. I hope we can discuss issues civilly no matter what party we are from.

I have lots of links to still post. I hope to have everything for the various candidates up by tomorrow. If anyone wants to write for the blog, please email me privately. All accounts have been deleted and I will have to create a new account for you.

I welcome input and links to interesting articles that I might want to include on one of the blogs. There are a couple of others who are creating their own SBCo. blogs and I will post links for you as soon as they are up and running.

This is it for tonight!